


An Eternity

by ashleybenlove



Category: Toy Story (Movies)
Genre: (well this was posted elsewhere during February so...), Angst, Character Death, Community: disney_kink, F/F, Femslash February, Immortal Women, Immortality, Immortals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 16:50:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14773446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashleybenlove/pseuds/ashleybenlove
Summary: Jessie is immortal. She wants Emily to be immortal too.





	An Eternity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [afterandalasia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/gifts).



> I originally posted this anonymously in February 2014 on the Disney Kink Meme for the prompt: "Vampire, or otherwise immortal Jessie/human Emily who doesn't want to or can't be changed. Angst definitely the name of the game."
> 
> I really adored this concept. To the point that I actually played around with this concept well after I posted this fic. I still have docs on my computer specifically about this concept. 
> 
> Also, I am so _thirsty_ for stories about immortal women. I need more of those in my life.

“Emily, I am immortal,” Jessie whispered into Emily’s ear. “I will live forever, my darling. And, if you like, I can make it, so you can too.”

Jessie’s lips met Emily’s neck, and gently, careful not to actually bite her, kissed the soft flesh. 

Emily sighed, enjoying the attention given upon her neck. 

Jessie sighed, too, happy with the closeness of being with Emily in that moment. 

With her arms around Emily, she felt Emily tense up— she probably just realized what Jessie had said.

Emily pulled away from her, and then turned around, to look at Jessie in Jessie’s beautiful green eyes.

Jessie looked like she was hardly older than thirty, but apparently had lived for much, much longer than that.

“How old are you, really?” Emily asked. “You’re not actually thirty, are you?”

“No. I am one thousand, two hundred twenty-one years old,” Jessie said. She then added, “I was born in the year seven hundred ninety-three.”

Shock reigned on Emily’s soft features.

“I-I was thinkin’ that perhaps you were born around the time the Declaration of Independence was signed, or somethin’,” she said shakily. She gave an uncomfortable laugh. “Not…”

“Almost a thousand years before, eh?” Jessie asked. 

Emily nodded shakily.

She pressed close to Jessie and gave Jessie a soft, brief kiss on the lips.

“I love you, Jessie. But, I don’t want to live forever. I-I-I don’t think I can do it. Watch other people I care about die?” Emily asked.

Jessie looked immensely sad.

“How do you think I feel?” Jessie whispered. “I have lived enough for fifteen lifetimes. I have lost more people than I care to think about— to Viking battles, to the Black Death, to the Old West. Losing more is nearly” and her voice broke when she said the next word, “unavoidable.” 

She sat down and covered her face with her hands. Emily immediately sat down next to her and put her arm around her. Emily held Jessie for a long time, in an attempt to be comforting for the woman who had lived for over a millennium and who she loved very much. It was an awful thing she was shouldered with, having lost so many people in her life. And, obviously, this would continue to happen for eternity. Poor Jessie.

She loved Jessie so much, and it hurt her to think of Jessie mourning her death in some fifty years, when perhaps, it could have been preventable.

She still had her misgivings about it, but perhaps, if Jessie was not alone in living for eternity, maybe it would ease the pain. 

When Jessie was calm, Emily asked her, “Can I at least think about it?”

“Of course,” Jessie said. “I don’t want you to feel forced to do it at all. Whatever you decide, Emily. I will support you.”

Jessie kissed Emily softly.

 

Emily considered it for a long time, not taking such a monumental decision lightly. Live a normal lifespan (another fifty years or so) or live forever. Jessie had already lived more than a thousand years; well aware that she would be alive in another thousand and even further. While there were so many wonderful things that she could witness if she lived forever— Jessie had talked at great length how seeing the changes that had happened to the world she lived on over the course of more than a millennium was beyond her wildest dreams, both marvelous and terrible, when she became immortal in her thirtieth year of life. Jessie talked about how she looked forward to the changes that the world would bring well into the future. 

It had always pained Emily to realize that she would not live to see the advances in the world that would happen after she had passed away. 

And Jessie had gotten to see so many advances (and had taken part in some of them). 

Jessie had lived many lifetimes already. 

Jessie had also, not wishing for Emily to not know what would happen, explained the process to her: a spell that would be said during a loving moment— what kind depended on the relationship between the caster and castee. But, both fickle and difficult, it sometimes did not work— and it could also be only performed on an individual once. So, if it didn’t work the first time on that person, there was no second try. There would be a second spell that Jessie would perform a little later that would tell her whether or not the immortality spell took hold. 

Three months after Jessie first asked her, Emily had her answer: she agreed to the immortality spell.

The two of them had been cuddling in bed, touching one another softly, and gazing into the other’s eyes with absolute love and affection— both felt that they wanted to be together for a very long time, and Emily wanted a chance to see what sort of events and advances could happen past her normal lifespan— and thus Emily whispered her consent to the immortality spell.

Jessie smiled happily and they kissed passionately, Jessie’s hands on Emily’s waist. After a moment, Jessie’s lips moved to Emily’s cheek, her earlobe, and then on her neck. An open mouthed kiss on Emily’s neck, and then Jessie whispered something in a language Emily did not know, possibly Jessie’s birth language, and she knew— it was the spell. 

They were so happy in this moment.

 

A little while later, Emily sat on the edge of the bed, Jessie stood in front of her and looked at her, and then performed the spell to find out if the previous spell took.

When Jessie stopped speaking in the foreign language, she whispered, “Come on blue.”

A self-contained small explosion appeared in front of Emily— it did not touch her— the color of the explosion was not blue— it was orange. 

Emily saw Jessie’s face: her crestfallen face, her mouth in a “No” shape and she knew.

The spell had not worked. 

Emily felt a great deal of disappointment and sadness— so she would live a normal lifespan where she would die at some point in the future. And Jessie would lose another person she had loved in her more than thousand years of life.

She was sad but that did not compare to Jessie, who had collapsed onto the floor and started sobbing.

Through her long life, Jessie had lost many people she loved— family, friends, lovers— to their mortality.

And now, she would lose another.

Perhaps it would not be for another fifty years, but when your lifespan was never-ending, it made a colossal difference.

And that unavoidable and unbearable knowledge that someday Emily would die greatly hurt the immortal redheaded woman sobbing on the floor. 

And it certainly hurt Emily.

Being at a tremendous loss of what she should do, Emily simply dropped down on the floor, and sat next to Jessie, rubbing her back in an attempt to comfort and calm her.

For a long time, all Emily could hear was Jessie crying as well as her gasps of breath.

Emily knew the significance of this but it did not quite hit her until a still crying Jessie threw her arms around her and held her as tight as she could that Emily realized: she just lost the chance to live forever with Jessie. She felt disappointment and sadness when it had not worked but had realized that the spell had a likelihood of not working and so while she had wanted immortality, had not put all of her hopes in it.

But Jessie had.

Any tears that Emily had were for Jessie.

“I wanted it to work!” Jessie sobbed.

And thus, their relationship would be truncated by Emily’s lifespan. Their happiness would be darkened by Emily’s mortality.

Emily did not bother with saying “At least we have around fifty years!” because without the insurance of immortality, Emily could die at any time. Maybe it would be in fifty years— maybe it could be longer than that, but it could also be shorter.

And to comfort her with that was not fair.

Fifty years meant very little to someone who had lived that nearly twenty four and a half times.

Shortly after that wonderful and awful day in Emily’s thirtieth year and Jessie’s one thousand, two hundred twenty-first year, they decided to treasure one another until the inevitable separation of Emily’s death, as painful as that would be. 

The two women: immortal and mortal were together until Emily’s eighty-fifth year and Jessie’s one thousand, two hundred seventy-six year.

And Jessie had lost her.

Yet another person she loved. And she would have to live on forever without her. She would have to face an eternity without Emily, whereas some widows only faced a handful of years without their love, she would have to face it forever. And she was so aware of this— from the moment that the immortality spell failed to work and was even more aware of it on the day of Emily’s funeral and Jessie had to move on.

She had lived over one thousand two hundred years (and was less than a quarter of a century away from one thousand three hundred) and she knew her future one thousand and three hundred years from now— it was without her love, Emily.

**Author's Note:**

> The year of Jessie’s birth coincides with the beginning of the Viking Age (793 CE).


End file.
